The Languages in
Programming
ALGO
L
ALGOL
ORIGIN and HISTORY
- Who created ALGOrithmic Language?
ALGOL was created by European and American
computer scientists in 1958 at an IAL meeting in Zurich,
Switzerland. There 13 computer scientists that developed
ALGOL. Some of these computer scientists are:
John Fritz Joe John Peter Alan
McCarth Brauer Wegste Backus Naur Perlis
y in
ALGOL
ORIGIN and HISTORY
- What was the primary motivation for its
creation?
The primary motivation for creating
ALGOL (Algorithmic Language) was to
develop a universal, machine-
independent language for scientific
computing aiming to overcome the
limitations of existing machine-
ALGOL
ORIGIN and HISTORY
- What was the primary motivation for its
creation?
The primary motivation for creating
ALGOL (Algorithmic Language) was to
develop a universal, machine-
independent language for scientific
computing aiming to overcome the
limitations of existing machine-
ALGOL
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
According to John Backus, the original goals of the original
meeting in ETH Zurich were:
- To provide a means of communicating numerical methods and
other procedures between people
- To provide a means of realizing a stated process on a variety of
machines.
ALGOL was designed to solve the problem of needing a
universal, standardized language for publishing and
communicating algorithms. At the time, computer software was
often proprietary and tied to specific hardware, making
universal adoption and sharing of algorithms difficult.
ALGOL
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
Original objectives of Algol:
- Machine independence
- As close as possible to mathematical notation
- Usable for the description of algorithms in
publications
- Easily translatable to machine instructions
- Avoid some of the perceived problems with
FORTRAN
- Language simplicity
ALGOL
KEY FEATURES and
Block Structure: CONCEPTS
ALGOL introduced the concept of
"blocks," which are sections of code delimited by begin
and end keywords. This feature allows for grouping related
statements and defining their own scopes, improving code
organization.
Structured Programming: It was a pioneer in structured
programming, emphasizing clear, organized, and
maintainable code by promoting the use of loops,
conditional statements, and subroutines.
ALGOL
KEY FEATURES and
Recursion: ALGOL CONCEPTS
was among the first languages to
support recursive procedures, allowing functions to call
themselves. This provides an elegant way to solve
problems that have a naturally recursive structure.
Lexical Scoping: ALGOL introduced nested functions with
lexical scope, meaning that the scope of a variable is
defined by its position in the nested structure of the code.
ALGOL
KEY FEATURES and
Formal CONCEPTS
Syntax Definition (BNF): The Algol 60 Report
was significant for its formal definition of the language's
syntax using the Backus-Naur Form (BNF) notation. This
notation is still used today for describing the syntax of
programming languages.
Orthogonality: The language aimed for a high degree of
orthogonality, meaning that basic language constructs
could be combined in many ways, reducing the need for
special cases and exceptions in the syntax.
ALGOL
KEY FEATURES and
CONCEPTS
Parameter Passing: ALGOL featured two primary
methods for passing arguments to subprograms:
call-by-value (a copy of the argument is passed)
and call-by-name (the argument is re-evaluated
each time it's used in the procedure body).
Dynamic Arrays: It introduced dynamic arrays,
whose sizes could be determined at runtime,
offering flexibility compared to static arrays.
ALGOL
SYNTAX EXAMPLE
ALGOL
LEGACY and INFLUENCE
- What is ALGOL’s enduring legacy? Is it still used today?
ALGOL's enduring legacy is its profound influence on the
design of virtually all modern programming languages,
particularly by introducing concepts like block structure,
lexical scoping, and structured programming.
- Is it still used today?
No, ALGOL itself is not used for new software
development today, its foundational principles remain vital
for computer science education, algorithm development, and
understanding the evolution of programming paradigms.
COBO
L
COBOL
ORIGIN and HISTORY
COBOL (common business-oriented language) is a standard
programming language developed by a consortium
CODASYL (Conference/Committee on Data Systems
Language) in 1959 to support business and financial
applications. The language was primarily conceived for
mainframe computers and was not dependent on any
particular operating system for its working.
The
Developers
COBOL
ORIGIN and HISTORY
COBOL is a user-friendly language that uses
English words and phrases as a syntax of
keywords and constructs. This natural
language-inspired syntactical structure
evolved from Grace Hopper’s 1940s work on
FLOW-MATIC, a text-based data processing
language. Languages such as COMTRAN and
FACT significantly influenced the eventual
COBOL
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
The financial services industry still relies on COBOL, a 60-
year-old programming language originally designed to
process large amounts of data at high speeds. Many banks,
insurance companies, and financial institutions continue
using it on mainframes because it can handle vast
transaction volumes, multiple users, and accurate
arithmetic functions efficiently. Updating legacy systems
often risks errors, downtime, or data exposure, but COBOL
helps prevent such failures, ensuring smooth operations and
protecting sensitive financial data.
COBOL
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
Migrating COBOL applications to the cloud
strengthens digital operations since cloud services
are reliable, secure, fast, and scalable. Platforms like
Azure and AWS support COBOL by offering tools to
recompile, edit, test, and debug applications, plus
runtime environments for resource and database
mapping. This shift reduces mainframe costs,
provides flexibility during peak demand, and
modernizes legacy systems through cloud
COBOL
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
Machine Learning (ML) identifies patterns and relationships
in data to generate insights and predictions, requiring large
amounts of data for training and analysis. Since mainframes
store vast datasets, they are well-suited for ML applications.
An example is IBM ML for z/OS (IBM MLz), which gives
mainframes direct access to multiple ML libraries. With
systems like IBM MLz, the COBOL language supports
extracting valuable insights from mainframe data, helping
businesses make critical decisions.
COBOL
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
The COBOL language supports real-time transaction analysis
across industries. In April 2022, IBM introduced IBM z16, a
next-generation system with an integrated on-chip Telum AI
accelerator designed for critical mainframe workloads and
real-time processing. Known for high speed, IBM z16 can
manage 300 billion inference requests daily with just one
millisecond latency, enabling the efficient execution of deep
learning models in real time.
COBOL
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
The financial services industry still relies on COBOL, a 60-
year-old programming language originally designed to
process large amounts of data at high speeds. Many banks,
insurance companies, and financial institutions continue
using it on mainframes because it can handle vast
transaction volumes, multiple users, and accurate
arithmetic functions efficiently. Updating legacy systems
often risks errors, downtime, or data exposure, but COBOL
helps prevent such failures, ensuring smooth operations and
protecting sensitive financial data.
COBOL
KEY FEATURES and
The language is characterized as a
CONCEPTS
global business language, Its easy
readability is noted, which simplifies
code maintenance and understanding.
Furthermore, COBOL demonstrates
seamless integration with modern
systems, indicating its compatibility
with newer technologies. Its status as
a portable language allows it to
function across various computing
platforms. Finally, it's described as an
evolving language, suggesting that
COBOL
SYNTAX EXAMPLE
COBOL
LEGACY and INFLUENCE
The legacy of COBOL programming language lies in its
vital role in shaping business and financial systems for
over six decades. It has powered mission-critical
applications in banking, government, and insurance,
proving its reliability and efficiency in handling large-
scale transactions. Even today, COBOL remains deeply
embedded in global operations, showing how a language
from 1959 still drives modern industries. COBOL's legacy
is defined by its decades-long role powering the world's
core business, financial, and government systems with
its unmatched reliability, stability, and scalability,
PLANKALKUL
PLANKALKUL
ORIGIN and HISTORY
- Who created the language and when?
The German engineer Konrad Zuse
created the computer language Plankalkül
between 1943 and 1945. The plankalkül
was created as the programming
language for the Z3, the first
electromechanical computer that could be
programmed, which Zuse constructed
himself in 1941. It was eventually more
comprehensively published in 1972 and Konrad Zuse
the first compiler for it was implemented
in 1998.
PLANKALKUL
ORIGIN and HISTORY
• What was the primary motivation for its creation?
Konrad Zuse was primarily motivated to create Plankalkül
in order to develop a formal, conceptual system for writing
programs that would function as a forerunner to today's
high-level programming languages and to lay the
theoretical groundwork for solving general issues. His goals
were to minimize the enormous amount of mental work
involved in programming in assembly language and to
provide a method of describing algorithms that was
independent of the particular operations of his early
PLANKALKUL
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
• The purpose of Plankalkül was to offer a structured
method for organizing and carrying out logical processes
and technical computations. Its founder, Konrad Zuse,
aimed to create a universal, high-level programming
language for computers that could manage complex data
structures, logical operations, and numerical
computations, basically a "program calculus" for
engineers.
• Plankalkül was primarily used for scientific and
PLANKALKUL
KEY FEATURES and
CONCEPTS
Plankalkül, meaning "plan calculus," was
the first high-level programming language,
designed by German engineer Konrad Zuse
between 1942 and 1945. It was a
theoretical language, never fully
implemented on Zuse's Z3 or Z4
computers, but it contained a number of
revolutionary ideas for its time.
PLANKALKUL
KEY FEATURES and
Structured Data Types: Plankalkül was a pioneer in using
complex data types. It CONCEPTS
supported structured variables like arrays
and records, which were called "Plankalkül tuples," a concept that
wouldn't become common until decades later.
Two-Dimensional Syntax: The language was written in a unique
two-dimensional grid format rather than a linear sequence of
characters. This layout was designed to clearly show variable
names, data types, and indices, making the program's structure
visible at a glance.
No GOTO Statements: The design of Plankalkül avoided the
GOTO statement, a feature that would later be championed by
PLANKALKUL
SYNTAX EXAMPLE
PLANKALKUL
LEGACY and INFLUENCE
Despite being largely unknown for over two decades due to World War II,
Plankalkül's concepts predated and influenced many later developments in
computer science.
•Pioneering Concepts: The language introduced groundbreaking concepts
like subroutines (with input and output parameters), conditional execution,
and iteration. These features would become standard in modern
programming languages.
•Influence on ALGOL: Although its direct influence is debated, some
sources suggest Zuse's ideas were known in Europe and may have subtly
shaped the design discussions for ALGOL 58, which also focused on
machine independence and structured syntax.
•Historical Significance: Plankalkül is a testament to the foresight of its
LIS
P
LISP
ORIGIN and HISTORY
LISP is the second oldest higher-level language (after
FORTRAN), first developed by John McCarthy (then of MIT)
following the Dartmouth Conference of 1956 that is often
taken as the birth of the discipline of Artificial Intelligence.
Though it has been used in other areas, it is primarily
identified with the field of AI and was the "lingua franca" of AI
work for many years
John McCarthy
LISP
ORIGIN and HISTORY
McCarthy’s primary motivation was to
devise an algebraic language. This
language needed to efficiently process
lists. He recognized lists as crucial for
tackling the complex problems
inherent in artificial intelligence.
LISP
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
LISP aimed to create intelligent machines. It was conceived
specifically as an algebraic list processing language. This was
tailored for the unique demands of artificial intelligence work.
This initial association shows a significant alignment between
the language’s core features. It continues to meet the inherent
requirements of AI research and development.
Lisp was primarily used in academia, especially for artificial
intelligence research, and it dominated the field from the
1960s through the 1980s.
LISP
KEY FEATURES and
CONCEPTS
• It is machine-independent
• It uses iterative design methodology, and
easy extensibility.
• It allows updating the programs dynamically.
• It provides high level debugging.
• It provides advanced object-oriented
programming.
• It provides a convenient macro system.
LISP
KEY FEATURES and
CONCEPTS
• It provides wide-ranging data types like, objects,
structures, lists, vectors, adjustable arrays, hash-
tables, and symbols.
• It provides extensive control structures.
• Explain concepts like data types, control
structures, or other unique aspects.
• It is expression-based.
• It provides an object-oriented condition system.
• It provides a complete I/O library.
LISP
SYNTAX EXAMPLE
LISP
LEGACY and INFLUENCE
Lisp is still relevant today in fields such as
artificial intelligence, robotics, CAD, web
and game development, finance, education,
and research, where its strengths in
abstraction, rapid prototyping, symbolic
computation, and handling complex
algorithms make it highly valuable despite
not being as mainstream as other
LISP
LEGACY and INFLUENCE
Lisp influenced the development of
programming languages because it proved
that a mathematical design approach is
both possible and very useful, not only for
developing high-level languages that are
platform-independent, but also for keeping
track of what you are doing.
FORTRA
N
FORTRAN
ORIGIN and HISTORY
• FORTRAN, was originally developed by a team lead
by John Backus at IBM created in 1957.
John Backus
FORTRAN
ORIGIN and HISTORY
• FORTRAN's fundamental purpose is to make
computer programming easier, faster, and more
efficient for scientists and engineers. Before
FORTRAN, programmers had to use complex,
low-level languages, which was slow and prone
to errors. The goal was to create a language
that was closer to mathematical notation,
speeding up the process and making it
accessible to a wider range of people.
FORTRAN
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
• The specific type of problem the language was
designed to solve was that what was formerly a
laborious task of manually keying as many as a
thousand program instructions for a given problem could
now be translated, automated and reduced to only 47 in
fortran, and the cost of programmers was usually at
least as great as the cost of the computers, with
programmers spending up to half their time debugging.
FORTRAN
PURPOSE and DOMAIN
• Fortran greatly increased programmer productivity and
significantly lowered costs. It also opened programming
beyond a small group of experts. Increasingly, it became
the province of anyone willing to learn a basic language.
These factors, combined with its capacity to process
complex numerical problems, spurred the deployment of
Fortran across industries. It quickly proved its utility in a
wide variety of tasks and projects, from calculating
trajectories of airborne missiles and NASA flight patterns
to computing complex economic and statistical models.
FORTRAN
KEY FEATURES and
• CONCEPTS
FORTRAN's fundamental purpose is to make
computer programming easier, faster, and more
efficient for scientists and engineers. Before
FORTRAN, programmers had to use complex,
low-level languages, which was slow and prone
to errors. The goal was to create a language
that was closer to mathematical notation,
speeding up the process and making it
accessible to a wider range of people.
FORTRAN
SYNTAX EXAMPLE
FORTRAN
LEGACY and INFLUENCE
FORTRAN's legacy today is centered on its
foundational role in high-performance
computing (HPC) and its influence on modern
programming language design. It was the first
widely adopted high-level language, pioneering
concepts like optimizing compilers, typed
variables, and structured control flow. Today,
FORTRAN remains a dominant language in
supercomputing for fields such as climate
modeling, physics, and fluid dynamics, thanks to
REFEREN
CES
REFERENCES
ALGOL
• [Link]
algol-programming-language-d9c65b5fe4ba
• [Link]
omputer-knowledge/algol/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMuYMNleHRuA2Fl
bQIxMQABHgqlfS75ST94pOB3nOAiorEUnVvyz7K_Yxxi_MD_Bg
MKa8093-xCK2pGC6tz_aem_pmyLg76cEbUMsv9I4F_ChQ
• [Link]
uage-that-influenced-the-future-cfec9a3e2a4c?fbclid=IwY2xj
awMuYOpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHiB5aYN5kY2SxxCEx62_6hOZ
VBrSXiM5EngNrrsM3yqw3YFKBzF3ntOQuEFp_aem_KUpLfZoN
8XT8pNIVgv6x4A
REFERENCES
COBOL
• [Link]
es/what-is-cobol/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMuYI5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQAB
Hm50IYF2c5NWNG9Il4SrvtJsyynrjoV4WVNTOOV1JzD7mY5Yj7
ud_L5RTa5N_aem_QDnUci0katQuzvHBheHtng
• [Link]
xjawMuYKlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHvCKQy53sRM_cefdHwmD-0
XQ8PYCoTLHhCIfKlfaeOGQI45grczdgmAzRaNv_aem_v0RbmD
QENTucmbc2VWe52g
• [Link]
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REFERENCES
PLANKAKUL
• [Link]
f-konrad-zuse/
• [Link]
m_Bruines___0213837___Plankalkul.pdf
• [Link]
are-languages/
• [Link]
Plankalkul-the-First-High-Level-Programming-La
nguage-and-Its-Implementation-2000
REFERENCES
LISP
• [Link]
n-to-lisp/
• [Link]
y-lisp
• [Link]
SP-list-processing
• [Link]
ng/Lisp/1/[Link]
• [Link]
REFERENCES
FORTRAN
• [Link]
an/[Link]?fbclid=IwY2xjawMuYIJleHR
uA2FlbQIxMQABHqS2qA5Yk87tmnjjJvodrgmXxDeNoy
sPBN1Dq-Em5eF3upSar_9AIIPQRwM6_aem_xEiNb319
f_GKqCz9ta_VZA
• [Link]
wMuYLZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHn1GjgkN77Wpum7PMk
eBoXGvVXQ7CuGGuXacHFuSLOXVZ_75CzBgVIlrlVik_a
em_tLnnYY2Yxh-njYU0C5BJuQ
• [Link]
• [Link]
